TK, my high school freshman son, brought home his Literature textbook Friday afternoon, a weighty tome chock full of endless hours of boredom. A weighty tome I also have to cover with brown paper this weekend—a skill I was forced to resurrect from my own adolescence when TK hit middle school. The stretchy covers are useless and we’re not allowed to use contact paper. “Can you bag my groceries in paper today, please?â€
Anyway, he said he also had to read “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. The title tweaked the memory synapses, but I had no fire until TK said, “It’s about a rich guy who hunts humans”.
Oh! I read that!
Later that night, TK mentioned the story to his dad, who also got that look of tweaked memory with no ignition until I said, “you know, the guy who hunts people”.
Oh! He read that!
We thought it was pretty cool the kid would be reading the same story we had to. (Although, no groundbreaking short stories written this century? Really?) My husband’s seventeen years older than I am and, seeing as how he’s two years younger than my mother, we could loosely extrapolate at least three generations reading “The Most Dangerous Game”.
This all led to my paging through his Literature book and, much to my disappointment, the two stories I enjoyed most in high school aren’t there:
“The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry: I thoroughly enjoyed that story so much it has stayed with me to the point I’ll sometimes call my youngest son Red Chief when he’s being particularly mischievous. I think it illustrates the theme of irony just as well as his “The Gift of the Magi” while being a lot more accessible because it’s a hell of a lot more fun to read.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson: Packs a â€holy crap, no WAY†punch, doesn’t it? When I mentioned my disappointment in its absence, TK pushed me for details of the story. I refused to give them. While he’s the kind of child who probably ran to Wikipedia and looked it up the second my back was turned, I’m desperately hoping he reads “The Lottery” for the first time unspoiled.
What about you guys? I know the overwhelming theme of high school is ohmigod, required reading sucks, but I’m guessing there was at least one story or book that grabbed you and, perhaps because it grabbed you during those highly emotionally volatile teen years, has stayed with you.
What was it?
No related posts.
The Lottery is fantastic! (I’m a fifteen-year-old, and I read it last year for school).
I’ll have to read the others now
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Psychic teens in a post-nuclear world. Loved it so much then, and it held up to rereading later. My son had to read it in school too. (He didn’t love it, but it was “okay” which is pretty good for him and required reading.)
House of Stairs by William Sleator, about a group of teenagers locked in a building with no walls, no floors, no ceilings. Instead there are a bunch of staircases leading no where. And they are subject to behaviour conditioning when the only way they can get food is through a machine that requires them to do stuff. That book still haunts me (in a creep me out way) over nearly 30 years later. In fact, I don’t even remember how old I was when I read it, just that I still remember reading it!
Hmmm. I probably would never have read Lord of the Flies left to my own devices, and despite the grim subject matter it’s one of the things that made me fall madly in love with novel structure. It’s a brilliant piece of work from a technical standpoint, even if you loathe it. Shows what you can do with few words.
There were several books I loved from high school English: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. That last one was especially lovely and has really stuck with me.
Required reading is tricky–you can’t please everyone with every book, and some of the ones we were forced to read, I can’t believe were pleasing to ANYone, but I still think it’s a valuable part of learning to be a reader with varied, adventurous tastes. Because sometimes they struck gold with a book I never would’ve picked up on my own!
None of the required reading or the teachers in charge of it did anything to interest me in classic literature. They did a good job of ruining it. But the public library ladies helped me discover Austen, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Faulkner on my own by steering me in those diections. I think without them I doubt I’d have given the classics a second chance.
Flowers For Algernon and Travels With Charley, both of which were in my lit book and neither of which, strangely enough, were assigned. I just read them for pure pleasure and those are the ones that have stayed with me.
The Ox Bow Incident is the only English reading I can remember, though I did a project in high school on Rod McKuen’s poetry! Oh, as freshmen, we did a reading comparison of West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet. The WSS books had all the questionable and offensive language redacted with black marker. My how times have changed.
It’s funny you post this, Shannon. My daughter has been reading The Crucible in school the past few weeks. We’ve been discussing it, and the Salem Witch trials, which for me were so fascinating. They finished this past Friday, so I asked her what she’d though about the book as a whole? It’s stupid. Ended stupid. I was like, but that’s what HAPPENED. It was REAL. She was like huh…thought it was stupid. Can we go to Old Navy?
OMG. Sigh. She hasn’t caught my love of literature, that’s for sure, lol.
I can’t wait for her to read The Scarlet Letter~~I loved that book, and the whole world of discussions around it. Wonder what she’ll think, lol?
Wow, thanks for the reminder of O. Henry, I had a book of his short stories in middle school that I just ADORED. I can’t remember any them specifically, maybe The Green Door? I just got an overall wonderful nostalgic feeling when I read his name in your post *toddling off the library in search of him now*
This is going to sound weird, but the one book that I had to read in high school which really grabbed me, and which I’ve read four more times since, is Dante’s Inferno. You have to read the footnotes, yes (at least the first few times [grin/duck]) but once you get it, it’s hilarious. It got me interested in the Italian Renaissance, which was a major passion of mine for a while.
Unfortunately the sequels don’t hold up as well; Purgatorio is worth a few reads, but Paradiso is only worth one read for the sake of completeness. It’s interesting on an intellectual level, but nowhere near as entertaining as Inferno.
Paradise Lost is the same — it’s great once you pick up on the fact that Satan is cool, and I found it to be actually worth reading two or three times. Paradise Regained (which was not a requirement for school — neither were Purgatorio or Paradiso) is deadly dull and I never did finish it.
I read “Gift of the Magi” in junior high, I think, and liked it a lot. [nod] I also liked Hamlet, and went on to read a bunch of other Shakespearean plays.
I can’t really think of anything else from junior high or high school that grabbed me. [ponder]
Angie
Senior year of high school, I wrote a term paper analyzing Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card in the context of Plato’s The Republic. I love that book, and I loved the assignment.
Lots of mentions above of books and stories I remember reading in high school. One not mentioned and my favorite was ‘The Hobbit’ by Tolkien. I immediately went to the library and read the ‘Rings’ trilogy and they were the first books I purchased for my library.
On the other hand, I firmly believe the schools should search for more modern literature. Teenagers usually aren’t that thrilled to be reading the same thing we read back ‘in the day.’ And as a teenager, I thought ‘The Lottery’ was ridiculous and I still do.
Let’s see…in high school, I read the Scarlett Letter, but was frustrated with the characters, and found the young minister whipping himself to be…odd, although I did understand flagellation. I loved Walden and I still find the Transcendentalists fascinating, although if I had known any of them, I think I would have found them by turns interesting and annoying. I have never liked Dickens much–not a fan of goofy names and over-the-top characters, but I LOVED a Tale of Two Cities–I am a sucker for the self-sacrificing hero who does the right thing, regardless. Silas Marner–ick. Lord of the Flies was morbidly fascinating to me. King Lear and Othello gave me a peek into human nature, but I thought Hamlet was a whiner. Bartleby the Scrivener frustrated me–I wanted him to toughen up. I liked A Separate Peace, and got even more out of it when I reread it one afternoon in college. Oh, and the Bridge of San Luis Rey creeped me out–I feel so nervous when I finish or start something–thanks, Thornton Wilder!
If we’re talking short story in a Lit text book, “The Lottery” does top my list, right alongside “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner. My husband and I have discussed this & we both remember those two stories.
Other than those, it’s the usual suspects, Romeo & Juliet, Lord of the Flies, 1984, Wuthering Heights.
I did not really like Lord of the Flies. At the same time I believe it is a very valuble piece of lit, and should remain on reading lists. It is a story that can teach students a lot. I substitute taught last year and watched the film (the old B&W) with some of the students. It reminded me of why it sould be on the reading list, especially considering the behavior of the students.
I can’t remember a single book in high school that I actually enjoyed, though my AP Humanities teacher did allow me to write my term paper on the comparison of Death in King’s The Stand versus Anthony’s On a Pale Horse.
Number One is TK’s age, and also just finished reading “The Most Dangerous Game.” She also did some anticipatory reading of Dickens and Shakespeare this summer. She liked the story in A Tale of Two Cities but hated his slow style and focus on unimportant details so much that she isn’t looking forward to reading anything else of his.
I think there is plenty of modern literature that makes comments on TODAY’S society and is far more accessible and more engaging for teenagers. But it depends on the point of teaching literature in high school.
Is it to cater to the very few who will connect to the language and structure, and alienate the majority, causing many of them to never want to pick up a book for pleasure for the rest of their lives? If so, they’re doing a good job.
If, on the other hand, it’s to engage the majority in lively, intelligent, insightful discussions, making them think and discover and stretch themselves…well, we should turn to the innovators in the schools who choose books that will do that.
It is true that there is a need for more modern works to be included in English classes. It is also true there is a lot to learn from works in the past that apply to our life today. It all depends on how the teacher presents the work to the students. When I look at our world today I can see so many applications from the past. Reading older works is important. I believe it would be useful if teachers would pair older and newer works together and compare them. Also education is not about catering to the likes and dislikes of students. If that was so I wouldn’t have ever had to take math or science.
I suppose it’s true that we can learn from works from the past, but it’s also true that what is taught is a VERY skewed worldview. I’m sure there had to be a couple, but I don’t recall a single female author in the “classics” I was compelled to read. Not sure any were anything but white males.
Pairing and comparing is an excellent idea, and would serve the same purpose–engaging the students in discussion and contemplation.
Also education is not about catering to the likes and dislikes of students.
I wasn’t trying to say it should be. But what’s the point of bothering if the kids ignore it? If the students aren’t reading it, or are trying but not getting or caring, then no education is performed, anyway!
There are always going to be students who refuse to do the reading. Those are the students who are not going to do the reading no matter what it is. I know this from jsut one year of substitute teaching. I had to put up with those kids. They just don’t care. I will agree the absence of diversity in assigned reading. There is diversity in the classics but the problem is that the powers that be do not assign those authors. I believe there is a past post on this blog about that, or maybe it was another blog. Lately things tend to blur together between work and raising a three year old boy who can not sit still long enough to read. I am greatful he at least likes to look at books. He just not that big on being read to lately. Does anyone out there have little kids who like to look st books upside down? My son does and I just don’t get it.
There are always going to be students who refuse to do the reading. Those are the students who are not going to do the reading no matter what it is.
That’s not completely true. I was close to a straight-A student in high school, very goody-two-shoes, and a voracious reader since the age of 4. My junior year, I refused to read Intruder in the Dust because I thought a five-page sentence was ridiculous, and I didn’t read Conrad, either. That teacher assigned a huge variety of work so there was plenty that engaged us at varying times, and even with two failed tests I got an A in the class.
Everything in elementary school (here, anyway) is geared toward making kids love to read. Their assigned reading is contemporary authors. So why do they hit high school and suddenly contemporary isn’t good enough? I’m not saying remove Faulkner and Conrad from the curriculum, just mix it up a little.
Oh, and a rhetorical question: Why have we moved forward 20, 30, 40 years in time, but “classics” have remained stagnant?
(Thanks, Shannon, for this topic, and Heather, for the stimulating back and forth!
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You do have a point. I was just expressing my experiences. I will admit that a five page sentence is rediculous. You had it good. The way my classes were set up at my high school if you had refused to read a book and failed two tests there was no way to pass the class. It has been so long since I was in elementary school I do not remember what I read. I think that there needs to be more inclusion in the classics. There are some wonderful women writers of the classics but most schools do not include them on their reading lists. Maybe my favortism of older works comes from being a Political Science and History major in college. There is so much we can learn from the past. I see that everyday when I read the paper. We are so quick to forget the leasons of the past. I just fear that if students are not reading from a variety of sources we will forget and loose so much and that would be a great loss.
I wonder, Natalie, if it’s an age/geography/individual teacher thing? My high school gave us PLENTY of women writers; in fact, we read Anne Bradstreet (the first published U.S. female writer) and compared to male 17th century writers. A good foundation for my literature degree, anyway!
I did have it good, Heather, I was really lucky.
And I apologize, the elementary classes my kids have had DO mix some classics with the newer material; they don’t exclude it completely.
Absolutely, CT, age/geography/individual teacher (and strictness of district curriculum) make a huge difference. I hate absolutes, and don’t want to perpetuate one. But Shannon saying her older husband, and her age group (which is also mine, I’m 38), and our 14-year-old kids, all geographically diverse, are being assigned the same stuff, was my jumping off point.
Number One (my high-schooler) has no female authors on her reading list as of yet, at least not that I’m aware. Some of the short stories she’s been reading might have female authors.
Oh, MAN. I’m such an idiot.
I just remembered I had to read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. So that ruins my argument, because what else am I forgetting?
(Didn’t like that book, either.)